While electrochromism was discovered in the 1960s, electrochromic devices still unfortunately suffer various problems and have not begun to realize their full commercial potential. Electrochromic materials may be incorporated into, for example, windows. Electrochromic windows show great promise for revolutionizing the energy sector by affording huge energy savings, e.g., by controlling solar heat gain in buildings.
Advancements in electrochromic device technology have increased dramatically in recent years including ever lower levels of defectivity in the electrochromic device. This is important as defects often manifest themselves as visually discernible, and thus unattractive, phenomenon to the end user. Still, even with improved manufacturing methods, electrochromic windows have some level of defectivity. Moreover, even if an electrochromic window is manufactured with no visible defects, such visible defects may manifest themselves after the window is installed.
One particularly troublesome defect is an electrically short circuiting defect in an electrochromic window. There are existing methods of minimizing the visual size of shorting defects, but still there remains a perceptible defect, though small.